Workers' Compensation Temporary Total Disability (TTD)

What happens when you aren't able to perform any part of your work because of your injury? For instance, what if you suffered an injury like a rotator cuff injury to your shoulder when you fell in a hole on a construction site? Your doctor has recommended surgery but you’ll be off of work for about two months because you’ll need to rest. So TTD (Temporary Total Disability) benefits are for these types of employees who get injured on the job and are completely disabled after the accident for a “temporary" period of time.

Example Situations

This situation tends to happen a lot and generally involves workers who break a bone, have a surgery, or need therapy. Although they’re not permanently injured, they are completely unable to return to work for a period of time. This could be because the injury is severe or it could just be because the doctor has not “released" the worker to return to work yet. Another situation is when the doctor has released the worker for “light duty" work, but the employer doesn't have any light duty work available. Some examples of light duty work include work with restricted standing, bending or lifting, or jobs involving telephone work or greeting customers.

Benefits

Temporary Total Disability (TTD) is sometimes just referred to as “comp". It’s calculated as 2/3 of your average earnings over the prior 52 weeks before your injury. Sometimes this is a straightforward calculation and other times it’s not. Sometimes we’re able to include overtime in this wage calculation or remove weeks that you were on vacation or didn't get all the hours you wanted. The workers comp benefits for TTD are subject to certain minimum and maximum limitations that an experienced attorney can help you determine.

These TTD payments will eventually end when the treating doctor decides to release you because you’re all better, or when it’s determined that you’re just not going to get any better. This is called MMI (Maximum Medical Improvement).

Additional resources provided by the author

If you or a family member has suffered a accident or injury, we urge you to contact an experienced attorney. Such an attorney will carefully evaluate your case and explain the legal options available to you at no charge.